Feb 14, 2009

Elisa Media Center Appliance

James Willcox has created a media center appliance with SUSE Studio to see how hard it would be. The appliance is based on openSUSE 11.1, and boots right into the excellent Elisa Media Center. You can download the image here. The tarball contains one file, which you can ‘dd’ to a USB storage device. On the first boot it will do some one-time setup like repartition and resize the disk, install NVIDIA or ATI video drivers (if appropriate), and setup X. Essentially SUSE Studio is a web interface which allows you to build your own customized version of SUSE. You can select packages, do some configuration, and even add your own branding.

What can you do with SUSE Studio?

* Create a tuned server appliance, containing your application and just enough operating system components * Spin a live CD or DVD with just the packages and software you need * Create a ready-to-run VMware virtual appliance * Create a live USB key and carry your Linux system with you wherever you go * Build a hard disk image for preloading onto hardware * Install from your live CD, DVD or USB key to your hard drive